be the change
by
Lisa Endlich
Meet the men and women whose
deeply personal philanthropy is
dramatically changing the way we
think about giving
There are 8.6 million millionaires in
the United States, and these numbers are
set to rise in what will be the biggest
intergenerational wealth transfer in
history. As $41 trillion dollars (or
over three times the national GDP) moves
from the World War II generation to
their baby- boomer children over the
next couple of decades, it will become
imperative that the beneficiaries of
this wealth—even those not joining the
ranks of the superrich—begin thinking
about philanthropy, perhaps for the
first time in their adult lives. Here
they will find the personal journeys of
the most successful givers of their
generation.
This new generation of wealth has
already begun to change the face of
philanthropy and to reshape the entire
nonprofit sector. In Be the Change,
bestselling author Lisa Endlich presents
eleven compelling profiles of this
twenty-first century generosity. Through
candid, revealing, and often surprising
interviews, readers will venture into
the hearts and minds of the top names in
philanthropy today—men and women who
have chosen to use their immense riches
and influence to meaningfully improve
the lives of others in the most dramatic
ways. These intimate conversations
include in-depth interviews with:
-
Melinda Gates, one of the driving
forces behind the largest
philanthropic organization the world
has ever seen;
-
Bob and Suzanne Wright, he's the
former vice chairman of GE and
longtime head of NBC Universal and
their Autism Speaks has brought
awareness of autism onto the
national and international stage;
-
Paul Tudor Jones, founder of Tudor
Investments and the Robin Hood
Foundation;
-
Peter Bloom, founding chairman of
the groundbreaking
DonorsChoose.org.
From Connie Duckworth, a former Goldman
Sachs partner, who brings steady
employment to Afghani women and
education to them and their children, to
Johann Olav Koss, an Olympic gold
medalist who now strives to give
children in the direst circumstances the
chance to play, these philanthropists
demonstrate that giving doesn't begin or
end with a signed check. They grant
Endlich exclusive access to the stories
of how they learned from early failures
and developed a personal, sustainable
way of giving, and they also share the
catalyzing moment when they saw a
problem so heartbreaking they simply
could not turn away. In doing so, these
new philanthropists offer valuable
lessons—ones that will inspire readers
to start giving, keep giving, and become
the change they want to see in the
world.
Reviews:
Publishers Weekly
With a light dose of narrative
background and a heavy emphasis on an
interview format, Endlich (Goldman
Sachs: The Culture of Success)
allows philanthropists to voice their
passion for large-scale charitable
organizing and giving. The author's
subjects are an illustrious bunch,
including Melinda Gates and hedge fund
manager Paul Tudor Jones, and they
champion such diverse causes as autism,
poverty in Ethiopia, job training for
the inner-city poor and need-based
educational scholarships for college.
Endlich keeps her treatment balanced by
focusing on initial project failures and
challenges as well as successes and
brilliantly pulls together the common
threads and motivations of these
profiled philanthropists. The
financiers, entrepreneurs and even one
Olympian all agree that their
extraordinary luck in life and ability
to empathize factored heavily into their
desire to give back in a big way to
those in need; it is giving that adds a
"narrative" to their lives. Given the
excesses in corporate America and on
Wall Street lately, this heartening book
proves that even the most successful
individuals in business can also devote
themselves to something that "touched
them so profoundly that they could not
turn away." (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a
division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
About the Author
Lisa endlich
is the author of the New York Times
bestselling book Goldman Sachs: The
Culture of Success. She has worked
as a management consultant, a political
fundraiser, and a Wall Street trader.
She supports many charities and has
traveled to KwaZulu-Natal to work in an
AIDS program. She resides in New York.
Visit the Publisher's Website
